Empty seats were hard to come by up front, so Randy Pellam, eyes counting people as he walked, headed for the rear of the bus.
He glanced at a man leaning on his pushcart. He snuck a peek at another man, head slumped against a dirty window. Across the aisle, he gave a quick nod at a third man, who was gazing into empty space. When an open seat presented itself beyond the bus’ mid-section — just past the man rifling through his backpack and his neighbor, head keeping time to beat-up headphones — Pellam took it.
The more people who got on the bus, the more intent Pellam’s gaze became. Just as the front and rear doors whooshed shut, he crunched the numbers in his head.
“I counted 11,” said Pellam, “and two unsure.”
And the idling bus, preparing to traverse one of the city’s Night Owl routes, slipped into gear, rolling off into the chill of an early Friday morning.
Just moments before alighting on the bus, Pellam was seated in the Josephenium with nearly two dozen others, a smidgen of the hundreds of volunteers taking part in the Jan. 25 One Night Count, the annual tally of homeless people trying to make it without housing or shelter in King County. Organized by the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness (SKCCH), the Count, now in its 27th year, has relied on tabulations of people camped out under bridges or sleeping in cars. In hopes of painting a more accurate picture of the region’s homelessness, SKCCH instituted, for the first time, a count of homeless people on buses.
Pellam, who, in three and a half years of being homeless in Seattle has taken advantage of Night Owls himself, said he had an idea of what to look for.
“It’s the amount of clothes they have on,” Pellam said. The homeless “tend to wear more layers.” Within that group, he explained, is a subgroup of homeless drug addicts – crack and heroin —who wear very little clothing, as they’ve sold them to get money for a fix. “Or,” he added, “they can be carrying bags, lots of them.”
As he spoke, a woman wended her way down the aisle, a large plastic bag of clothes spilling out of her arms. Down it went on a rear seat. She ambled to the front. She made a second round trip, then a third, and a fourth, arms weighed down with a different bag each time.
“I’ve got a real good feel for the group that’s around here,” said Pellam, nodding.
But you can’t always recognize homeless people on the bus, said Pellam. Wanting to avoid generalities, he said shoes are an indicator, specifically those that look worn out and old. Or they’re likely to be drinking, maybe even eating, particularly canned food or crackers. “Headphones can be a typical luxury they can afford,” he added.
With seats opening and filling as the Night Owl plunged deeper into the pre-dawn, Pellam moved up front. Every person who walked past him over the next hour, he eyed: Are they or aren’t they?
The bus driver pulled up to a stop fronting a large parking garage, his voice crackling over the intercom: “It’s a good place to stay if you’re going to hang out. It’s better than the [next and final stop,] in my opinion.” Twelve people heeded his advice.
Disembarking at the last stop, Pellam and another Count volunteer huddled at a bus shelter for the return trip. A man sitting on a nearby bench coughed and hacked, globs of phlegm smacking the pavement. Doing a jig to keep warm, another man used a hand as a windbreak while lighting a half-smoked butt. A third man crept out of view. Pellam had already counted them.
As a southern wind bent young trees like limbo dancers, everyone waited in the cold.
Almost an hour later, a Seattle-bound bus nudged the curb. The three homeless men found seats and, curling up, went to sleep. At the recommended parking garage, a crew of riders swarmed aboard. Seats filled. Pellam’s eyes were abacus beads, ticking back and forth.
“Well,” he said, “I got 28 homeless.”
In time, as Seattle’s skyscrapers came into view, a man with a ripped up backpack boarded, standing in the aisle. A woman struggled to get past. He didn’t move.
Pellam watched him. “Add one more,” he said.
Back in the city, streetlights cast an ethereal glow. Pellam stepped onto the street at the last stop downtown. Borrowing a cell phone, he called in his count. “Twenty-nine,” he said as the bus motored on.
All told, on 13 round trip Night Owls, volunteers identified 124 homeless people on buses. Added to totals taken from Tent Cities and emergency rooms, gathered from new locales such as Renton, Kent, and Federal Way, the Count tabulated 2,140 people.
SKCCH executive director Alison Eisinger says that, to provide a true comparison with last year’s Count, this year’s new locales, like the buses, need to be removed from the aggregate. This drops the total to 1,946, she says. “So, that’s a 5 percent decrease [from last year’s locations],” says Eisinger.
While cautiously optimistic about the slight downward trend, she says shelter totals for the same evening, which aren’t included in the Count’s sum, won’t be finalized until March, so a more complete assessment of the county’s homelessness will have to wait.
Admitting that Metro buses aren’t intended to be used as shelters, she sees the count on Night Owls as integral to gauging local homelessness. She says SKCCH had heard about homeless people making use of Night Owls, but the totals supplied by Pellam and others surprised them. Says Eisinger, “We were pretty stunned.”
By ROSETTE ROYALE, Staff Reporter
For copy of actual issue, go to https://www.realchangenews.org/2007/01/31/jan-31-2007-entire-issue